Jayne Kirkham

Yes, of course. I thank my hon. Friend for drawing attention to that business, which is on the edge of my constituency. I agree that we have to embrace all sorts of energy sources—the urgency is definitely there. Kensa is one of the largest manufacturers of ground source heat pumps in Europe, but it is currently stymied by regulation and the future homes standard. Hopefully it will be able to grow in the future. Big challenges still remain. We need to get ready for floating offshore wind in the Celtic sea; there is a risk of places such as Cornwall losing out if we are not prepared. The grid network unites renewables businesses in Cornwall because of the capacity of the distribution network, which is a key barrier and constraint to growth. There is a lack of capacity and a slow speed, and the main grid stops at Indian Queens, which is only half-way into Cornwall. We need to upgrade those transmission and distribution networks. There are significant delays to accessing grid connections for projects such as onshore charging, the energy required by the potential new Kensa factory, and tin and lithium mining. The National Energy System Operator is newly nationalised. There will be a connections action plan to decrease the time it takes to get connected to the grid. We will need to front-load the work, do the surveys, and lay the cables to plug in all those power sources. There is currently no strategic national plan for that infrastructure. Vital plans to lay floating offshore wind cables, and the previous Government’s miserly £160 million FLOWMIS—the floating offshore wind manufacturing investment scheme—fund for ports, were awarded with no national strategy in place. The current Government has a £1.8 billion ports fund, which is welcome. However, the French Government have just put €900 million into the port of Brest—that is the equivalent of half our entire national ports fund for the next ten years invested in just one French port. We need a coherent plan for our ports. One of the test and demonstration models is being held up by planning, as are other projects. We need to look at planning, as well as at the huge number of skilled workers who are needed but lacking for renewables in the energy sector and to retrofit for the warm homes plan. The Crown Estate has partnered with Falmouth marine school to pay for children aged 14 to 16 from Helston community college to receive level 2 engineering training in the sphere of offshore wind. That is a pilot; there is no ongoing funding. It is great, but it will not address the massive skills gap. We need a huge scale-up. We have great local further education providers—Truro and Penwith college and Cornwall college—but they need the ability to scale up in conjunction with the industry. There is no national oversight of the map around the country of floating offshore wind for the future, no timescale for “test and demos”, and no pipeline of contracts with the Crown Estate to build the Celtic sea out so that the investors have certainty. We can use contractual tie-ins with the lease, and we can use procurement, but national coordinated action is needed now. We also need new domestic production targets for critical minerals. We are ready to be the multi-renewable power production capital of the UK. It is a vision of vast scale, which is not without challenges, but it shows that Cornwall is crucial because of what we offer, rather than what we need. It is time for us to step up and become the multi-renewable power production capital of the UK.